JERUSALEM POST, 21 November 2002.

A cut above the rest

A small but growing number of Israelis are
vociferously opposed to circumcision while the majority
of the population, from secular through to Orthodox,
believe the brit-mila ceremony is an essential element
of Jewish culture and religion.

Udi weighed his choices carefully. On the one hand,
he could inflict what he considered irreparable damage
and suffering on his newborn son. On the other, he
could inflict enduring shame and pain on his father. He
could sever a small flap of skin from his baby's penis;
or he could sever his relationship with his parent.

"It was [either] hurting my father or hurting my
child," the Tel Aviv-based hi-tech worker recalls. "I
decided my father could live with this. My child I'm
not willing to harm."

So Udi did what a marginal but increasing number of
Israelis are doing: He opted not to circumcise his
son.

On the eighth day after his grandson's birth, Udi's
father rang to ask if his grandson had been circumcised
and if his son understood the consequences of his
choice. Udi replied that he did. His parents didn't
phone him for the next two years.

"I expected them [my parents] to shun me and I was
willing to pay that price."

The excommunication lasted until the birth of
another child, this time a girl. Cajoled by family,
Udi's parents took the opportunity just a few months
ago to break their silence and visit their new
granddaughter.

Now, Udi says, "My father even shakes my hand. But
there is a wall between us. He won't hug me as he used
to."

Though Udi's father is secular like himself, Udi
understood his grief: "His son, the one he raised,
crossed the line and did something unthinkable, and he
was so ashamed. I really felt for him."

The experience, says Udi's wife Ronit, who asked
that the family's last name not be used, was the worst
among the 200 couples who form the support group she
started two and a half years ago for parents who choose
not to perform a brit mila. After the initial shock and
anger, most parents generally accept their children's
decision. But that doesn't mean it's easy to withstand
the societal pressure to circumcise - as almost all
Israeli parents of boys do perform the ceremony - which
is largely what prompted Ronit to form Kahal, or Parents' Group for Whole
Children.

The pressure to conform propels droves of parents
who would otherwise reject the ritual to go through
with it, according to Rani Kasher of Rosh Pina. He
produces a Hebrew-language publication, Af-Mila (which can mean both "No
circumcision" and "Say nothing"), for parents who are
considering skipping the snipping.

He began the periodical because most of the initial
information he found on the subject was in English and
not readily available in Hebrew. Countries such as the
US have well-established anti-circumcision movements in
which Jews often play prominent roles.

Kasher says, "I don't see any reason why I should
cut my son's genitals. There is no reason and I don't
think I have the right, even as a parent, to cut a
normal part of his body just because other people do
it."

Cultural pressure persuaded Hanoch Ben-Yami, a
philosophy professor at Tel Aviv University, to circumcise
his son after his birth three years ago even though he
had previously attacked the practice in the Hebrew
press.

His wife, he explains, worried about how society
would treat him. But it turns out a neighborhood
kindergarten had three uncircumcised boys last year and
two now.

"Nothing of the sort would have been imaginable five
or 10 years ago, so we can see things have really
changed," he says.

Kasher thinks that's only just the beginning, even
though right now his movement is a fringe one. He
foresees a time when the practice will be relegated to
history books. "Eventually I think religious people,
too, will stop doing it. But it will take years."

But perhaps not in Europe. If certain members of the
Swedish parliament get their way, theirs will become
the first country to outlaw the procedure. A bill
introduced in the nation's Riksdag last month would
forbid circumcision on any boy under the age of 15
except in cases of medical necessity.

"Hopefully they will succeed and they will be the
first nation in the world to recognize circumcision for
what it is - a crime," enthuses Avshalom
Zoossmann-Diskin, who leads the Israeli Association
Against Genital Mutilation.

He hopes other European countries will follow
Sweden's lead, even though, he says, "You don't have to
outlaw circumcision because it's already illegal to cut
any organ from a minor if they don't want or need it
done."

Rabbi Philip Spectre, who leads the Conservative Great Synagogue in Stockholm,
thinks differently. "Changing the law and making it
impossible to circumcise our children at eight days old
is an infringement of religious rights."

He has organized an effort to counter the proposal,
since he says the Jewish community was "blind-sided" by
a law passed last summer requiring anesthetics and a
medical professional accompanying the brit-mila
surgery.

"A law like that does not bode well for the ability
of Jews to practice ritual freely in Europe," says
Rabbi Andrew Sacks, director of the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly of Israel and
a practicing mohel, of the proposal. He points out that
few people in Sweden perform circumcisions except those
who do so for religious reasons - Jews and Muslims.

Spectre stresses that he doesn't see anti-Semitism
as the main motivation for the proposed bill.

"There's a very strong feeling in Sweden that the
Swedish people and government should be at the
forefront of [protecting] rights, especially children's
rights," he says. The law passed after a local Muslim
boy died from complications from medication
administered in connection with a circumcision.

"It might also be coming from a not-so-elegant
reason - that in Sweden, the newcomers, the immigrants
are viewed with suspicion," Spectre adds.

"These things often do have anti-Semitic elements
involved," says Michael Meyer, a visiting professor of
Jewish history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
"This is happening in Sweden at a time that there is a
lot of anti-Israel sentiment, which is often
anti-Semitic."

But even the hint of anti-Semitic reasons for the
bill's proposal angers Zoossmann-Diskin.

"They cry anti-Semitism and this is the end of the
discussion," he says. "It allows them not to deal with
the issue of mutilation and the right to have an intact
body."

The issue, according to opponents of circumcision,
includes the moral ramifications of cutting one's child
and the psychological impacts stemming from the trauma.
They claim that the level of discomfort experienced by
the child increases his later response to pain and
hurts the bond between the baby and his mother. They
also maintain that circumcision diminishes sexual
pleasure and that there is no medical reason to remove
the foreskin.

But Dr. Orly Prat, who heads the urology services at
Jerusalem's Bikur Holim Hospital, recommends the
procedure on medical grounds - though he advocates
using a mohel rather than a doctor to perform the
operation since mohels specialize in only one kind of
surgery.

He dismisses suggestions of reduced sexual sensation
or lasting psychological damage from the pain. He says
that in the course of a year, he usually sees only one
case in which an infant requires serious medical
attention because of mistakes made during
circumcision.

Americans - who unlike Europeans routinely practice
non-religious circumcision - perform the operation on
approximately 60 percent of the male population, down
from nearly 90 percent a generation or two ago.

The American Academy of Pediatrics does not
recommend routine circumcision but in 1995 [CIRP Note: actually 1999] noted
there are some medical benefits and that it's
legitimate for parents to take religious and cultural
traditions into account when deciding on the
procedure.

Meyer, also a professor at the Reform Hebrew Union
College, says the arguments boil down to one bottom
line: "Over many, many centuries, boys have undergone
this ritual, this operation, and there has not in fact
been serious damage to them."

And Sacks acknowledges that medical justification
for circumcision is scant - but that it's not the
point.

"I do not at all suggest that it's healthier to be
circumcised," he says. "But the claims of brit mila
being barbaric, the claims of being unaesthetic, the
claims of pain are all secondary, even if they were
true. The bottom line is that it's a mitzva."

Noting the medical arguments on both sides, Orthodox
rabbi Seth Farber of Jerusalem says, either way,
"There's something very powerful about making a
physical statement about the covenant that every man
has with God."

In that covenant, according to Chapter 17 of
Genesis, God promises to make Abraham's people many and
mighty and demands that Abraham and his offspring do
the following: "You shall circumcise the flesh of your
foreskin, and that shall be the sign of the covenant
between Me and you. And throughout the generations,
every male among you shall be circumcised at the age of
eight days."

Farber explains that the religious concept behind
the act is that "a covenant of the flesh is symbolic of
a covenant of the heart ... By cutting, it really
demonstrates that there are two sides to a covenant."
The dual aspects signify that responsibility goes both
ways, and that man must take an active role in the
world around him.

"It is a way in which man perfects the body. Man
perfects what God has given," he says. "Man can't sit
aside and wait for God to do everything."

He adds that it's also an act of cultural
significance. "I'm making a statement of dedication
toward my ancestors," Farber explains. "It's a very
profound statement that I bind myself to that ancestral
tradition, and that's what being part of tradition is
all about. I'm not just bonding myself to a ritual that
my contemporaries and peers think is important."

Ronit, co-founder of Kahal, gives a different
rationale for the ritual's staying power even among
secular Jews who have abandoned other trappings of
tradition: "Everything else is gone. Shabbat is gone.
Kashrut is gone. So they hold onto this thing, because
it's easy to hold onto... You only have to do it once,
and you do it to someone else. It's like paying a bill
to someone. Once you've paid, you're free to go."

But Emma Youval, a Jerusalemite whose firstborn son
was circumcised last year, says it was precisely the
sense of connection Farber describes that struck her
during the ceremony.

"From a cultural point of view, I felt that I was
reaching back through the generations to biblical
history and connecting with the forefathers and
-mothers.

"Each mother all the way back through history had
had to hand over her child to someone who was going to
cut it, to mutilate it basically, and you had to have
this faith," says Youval.

She admits that "it was scary," but says she never
considered not performing the ritual, "which in the end
means: 'That's it. He's a member of the community and
he can never deny it and the community can never deny
it.'"

That identification explains its nearly universal
appeal, according to Meyer. "There's a tremendous
symbolic significance to brit mila and I think people
recognize that not only in Israel but in the Diaspora
as well," he says. "This is recognized as a mark of
distinction of being a Jew."

Those opposed to circumcision, though, maintain the
opposite.

"It's not something unique to Jews. Muslims
circumcise their sons. In the States more than half the
population is circumcised," says Ben-Yami. "It's not
something that distinguishes a Jew from a non-Jew."

Cultures throughout the ancient Middle East -
including those of Egypt and Syria - practiced the
custom. Today Muslims also circumcise, though often at
a later age than Jews.

But Farber says that does not detract from the
ritual.

"This is a great example of a tradition we actually
share with the Arabs," he says. "Maybe this is an
opportunity for bonding instead of hatred... It can be
the basis of shared dialogue."

And indeed, the Swedish Jewish community has begun
to work with the local Muslim population to combat the
anti-circumcision bill.

"We are cooperating with the Muslims in order to
form a united front," Spectre explains, noting the
communities have begun to share information and
coordinate their efforts.

Spectre has set up a Web site and devised an action
plan which includes lobbying the government and
soliciting help from world Jewry.

Willy Sallomon of Kfar Saba, who used to be the
chairman of the Jewish community in Stockholm and
spends part of each year in Sweden, praised Spectre's
efforts, but says the bill has little chance of
becoming law. He explains that the private bill was
initiated by two parliament members and would need to
pass through a series of committees before being
recommended to the government. At that point, the
government would be able to choose whether to submit it
for binding approval.

Sallomon doubts that will happen, given that the
circumcision law passed last year stipulates the
practice be reviewed in four years, not one. In
addition, bill sponsors Marietta de Pourbaix-Lundin and
Inger Rene come from the conservative Moderate Party,
currently in opposition to the ruling Social
Democrats.

Though many Israeli circumcision critics think such
a legal prohibition is untenable in this country, four
years ago Zoossmann-Diskin's group attempted to do
exactly that. His association unsuccessfully petitioned
the
High Court of Justice, claiming that circumcision
is in contravention of the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom.

Zoossmann-Diskin has no sons and therefore hasn't
had to make a decision regarding brit mila as a
parent.

"I'm talking as a victim," he explains.

His anti-circumcision feelings were sparked by
witnessing a relative's circumcision in 1981.

"I decided after this event that I'm not going to
attend any more of these atrocious ceremonies."

But to Jason Kurtz, a student at the Otniel hesder
yeshiva, watching a brit is a positive experience. He
notes that after the baby cries, he is put in the arms
of a loving parent - an act of symbolic meaning and
actual reassurance.

"When you get hurt, you have your community around
you to support you and care for you."

He rejects the idea that the ritual victimizes those
who undergo it.

"I'm here. I've lived through a brit mila, so I
don't feel traumatized by it. I'd feel really robbed if
I hadn't had it.

"It's one of the strongest identity marks of being a
Jew. If you talk about being Jewish, that's one of the
things that's synonymous with who we are as a people
and our relationship with God," he explains. "I want to
be a Jew. I'm really proud to be Jewish and I don't
want that taken away from me."

Udi says his opposition to circumcision doesn't stem
from shame or disinterest in being Jewish.

"I'm a proud part of Judaism... I'm proud enough to
be part of the tribe without cutting a part of my
child's penis."

He and Ronit consider themselves secular but still
celebrate some Jewish holidays and teach their children
the fundamentals of the religion. Ronit stresses that
their stance is not anti-religious.

"I'm not against Judaism. We love the [Jewish]
things we do."

For Kurtz, though, the decision not to circumcise
connotes a rejection of Jewish identity.

"It's a statement that being Jewish is not important
in your life or who you are," he says. "I think it's
outrageous. I think it's spitting in the face of the
Jewish people. That's pretty harsh, but that's what it
feels like."

Circumcision "is an essential part of being Jewish,"
Kurtz adds, noting that Jews were killed by the Romans
for violating laws prohibiting the practice.

Ben-Yami counters that "Jewish identity can survive
without circumcision, in fact, even better without it
because more and more non-religious Jews have an
aversion [to the religion] because of some of the
things it contains, like circumcision. Judaism has
enough content in it to survive without
circumcision."

"It's something that came into Judaism from other
religions and other tribal [customs] and it will pass
from Judaism [too]," Udi says.

Kasher of Af-Mila agrees. Though he acknowledges
that his opinions are minority ones, he points to
growing interest in his publication and awareness of
the subject in the media, as well as the quick increase
from four founding families in Kahal to its current
size.

"It's going to vanish by itself, from the people,"
he says.

Kurtz, however, says the tradition is here to stay.
He says that people throughout history have expected
Judaism to die out but it hasn't.

"There's a reason why it hasn't happened and these
rituals are part of the reason. When you think about
what happened to the Jewish people in the last 2,000
years, it's a miracle that we're here now, and there's
no rational way that people from 2,000 years ago to 100
years ago would believe that the Jewish people would be
a nation in this place."

The assumption that circumcision will gradually
disappear is flawed, he says. "It seems to be
neglecting the obvious power of our own history."

Fulfilling the commandment - According to
Norm Cohen, the Michigan director of the National
Organization of Circumcision Information Resource
Centers (NOCIRC), the ritual of circumcision
boils down to one thing: "It's really about, 'When I go
to the Jewish community center and I put on a swimming
suit, will I look like the other men?' What does that
have to do with God? What does that have to do with the
covenant?"

His answer - nothing - prompted him to create an
alternative to the brit mila, one in which the
"painful, harmful, and dangerous" aspects of removing
the foreskin have nothing to do with welcoming a child
into the Jewish community.

His "brit shalom" ceremony takes its textual
direction from the verse in Leviticus, "And the Lord
said, 'You shall not make cuttings in your flesh for
the dead, nor imprint any marks upon you.' "

After declaring that "the covenant between God and
the Jewish people will continue after the symbolic
token, circumcision, is abandoned," the ceremony
continues with familiar prayers and customs - such as
blessing a glass of wine and prominently featuring a
sandak (someone who holds the baby during the event) -
performed with a twist that emphasizes the baby's
perfect form, sans circumcision.

Brit shalom, also called an alternative brit, brit
b'li mila (covenant without cutting) or brit haim
(covenant of life), is practiced among Jews - primarily
in America - who oppose circumcising their children, or
who think that since the traditional practice only
welcomes males into the covenant, it's sexist.

Benjamin Biber, a Washington-based
rabbi of the Humanistic Judaism movement,
routinely performs such alternative baby-namings. The
circumcision ceremony "privileges the male and [makes]
the male child the one of special religious interest
for the culture. We are equal, so we just do
baby-naming ceremonies that view male and female
children as equal, just as male and female adults are
equal," he says.

The movement, which began in Detroit in 1969, claims
50,000 members worldwide, including in Israel. It aims
to "create a meaningful Jewish lifestyle free from
supernatural authority and imposed tradition,"
according to its Web site.

"Because our movement is humanistic, we don't
believe in a covenant between humanity and a deity. We
believe in a covenant between human beings," Biber
explains.

The leadership's statement continues, "We support
parents making informed decisions whether or not to
circumcise their sons. We affirm their right to choose,
and we accept and respect their choice. Naming and
welcoming ceremonies should be egalitarian. We
recommend separating circumcision from welcoming
ceremonies."

Biber says he personally opposes circumcision and
won't preside over a naming ceremony done in connection
with the procedure. "I'm a naturalist so I believe that
the human body is quite functional on its own, and
cutting bits off is not a good idea."

In Israel, the movement doesn't have the same formal
structures and community orientation. Its leaders focus
on providing education in Jewish history, culture, and
traditions in way that's accessible to secular people.
They teach religious ritual only as a part of Jewish
experience, not for personal practice, and like their
American colleagues believe the decision to circumcise
should be left with the parents.

Ya'acov Malkin, who founded and serves as the
academic director of MEITAR, the
College of Judaism as Culture, says of circumcision: "I
don't regard it as a religious act at all... if it's
medically not necessary, it's not necessary."

He circumcised his own son 50 years ago "because of
habit, because it was a custom, it is a custom of the
Jews."

He says that he was raised a "free Jew" by his
family of atheists before moving to Eretz Yisrael in
1934, when he was seven.

This upbringing, and his recognition that a large
number of secular Israelis grow up without a way to
interact positively with their culture, having been
alienated by a strictly observant lifestyle, encouraged
him to change the situation.

His college teaches classes on classical Jewish
texts as well as modern ones, such as works by Amos Oz,
Franz Kafka, and Martin Buber.

To the suggestion that Free Judaism is Judaism
without God, he replies: "It does include God of
course, because God is one of the most important
literary heroes in all the Jewish literature, in all
literature."

A group of 35 American Jews that claims members from
secular to Orthodox tries to find ways of reconciling
Judaism to a circumcision-free life. The organization,
Jews Against Circumcision, was
started, as founder Gillian Flato of California puts
it, because information against the practice "must come
from within."

Brought up Conservative and now a Reform Jew, Flato
says that what makes you Jewish is whether your mother
is Jewish, not whether you are circumcised.

Besides, "There's a lot of contradiction in
Halacha," Flato says. "Part of Halacha says you cannot
harm another person. But ripping off the foreskin is
harming another person."

Flato goes further in her challenge of traditional
Jewish precept when she points out that in the
discussion of the covenant in Genesis, God tells
Abraham "I will make you exceedingly fruitful, and I
will make nations of you, and kings shall come out of
you," in return for Abraham's circumcising of his sons
and slaves.

She says that Jews only comprise one half of one
percent of the world's population, that kings of the
Jews have been few in number, and that "we don't have a
land of our own because we've been fighting the
Palestinians forever and there's all kinds of turmoil
there."

She concludes, "Some would argue that God's not
fulfilled his part of the covenant, so why should we
fulfill our part by continuing to mutilate our sons'
penises?"

A snip at a time - Andrew Sacks's work has
taken him to the sandy white beaches of Greece, the
fast-paced streets of Hong Kong, and the cracked dirt
roads of Uganda. Is his the jet-setting life of a
travel writer? A corporate magnate? A spy? No. It's
that of a professional mohel from Israel.

He explains that populations throughout southern and
Eastern Europe need someone to help perform
circumcisions on newborns and carry out conversion
ceremonies, while expats living in East Asia have no
local ritual circumciser. And in Uganda, 200 members of
the Abayudaya tribe wanted to undergo brit mila to
halachicly sanctify the Jewish life they've led for
nearly a century.

Sacks arrived in their small village last winter
full of skepticism about the Jewish pretensions of the
community.

"Everybody thinks they're part of the lost tribes
these days," he says.

According to the community, the tribe has been
living as Jews ever since their leader Semei Kakungulu
introduced them to the religion in 1919 after reading
the Old Testament. When Sacks saw that they kept Jewish
customs including immersing in a mikve and practicing
circumcision, his doubts vanished.

Since the males had already had their foreskins
removed - though not, as Halacha requires, by a Jew -
he merely performed a symbolic brit mila. The men
formed a long line leading from a small hut perched on
a mud floor in which Sacks and the village's roaming
chickens waited. One by one the local men went in and
out, receiving a small nick along the scar of their
circumcision accompanied by the necessary
blessings.

Not all of the cultural surprises Sacks has
experienced in his 20 years as a mohel have taken place
outside the country.

At an Israeli brit, a woman at the ceremony asked
Sacks if she could have the foreskin to swallow because
she had heard the legend that doing so helps a barren
woman conceive. He told her that a sip of the wine
blessed during the circumcision would be as effective,
so she drank the liquid instead.

Sacks says he generally buries the removed skins in
his geranium garden, since the tradition is to inter
them like any other part of the body. Some Diaspora
mohels use a tin with Israeli soil inside so that the
foreskin can be "buried in Israel."

The 3,000 circumcisions that Sacks estimates he's
performed have ranged from ceremonies on secular
kibbutzim (in which he often has to mumble the prayers
to himself because the parents don't want to observe
the rite's religious aspects) to flashy
affairs-cum-discos in suburbs to hospital operations
for new immigrants.

In one case he performed a circumcision on a
76-year-old Russian who had just made aliya.

"He had a smile on his face the whole time he
underwent the circumcision."

The emotions of those experiencing the brit mila -
parents and children - are not always so positive.
There's even a debate among the Ashkenazim about
whether to say the Sheheheyanu prayer that's recited at
all happy occasions.

"Is a brit a happy occasion or not because there's
pain for the child?" Sacks asks.

The answer differs within Israel, where the blessing
is said, and without, where it's not.

SACKS RELATES that though women are more visibly
affected by the event than men - often crying or
leaving the room - he's only seen men faint. Usually
it's an uncle or cousin, says Sacks. He has never seen
a father pass out although one became sweaty, fell
over, and cut his head on a piece of furniture, "but
never went unconscious."

While that happened, Sacks kept to the task at hand.
"I'm very focused on what I'm doing," he says. "If
there's a sonic boom, or, as often happens, a cellphone
rings, it doesn't faze me."

Unlike the rabbi played by Ben Stiller in Keeping
the Faith, Sacks has never himself fainted at a brit
mila, but he does admit that he was sweating and his
knees were shaking the first time he performed the
operation. He trained for a year and a half before he
commandeered the knife on his own, first observing and
then assisting before being left in charge.

Learning to be a ritual circumciser is quite
difficult, he says, because most mohels don't want to
teach anyone for fear of their disciples homing in on
their business. He only received instruction because he
lived in Pennsylvania at the time and his teacher knew
he would make aliya soon.

In Israel, he says, mohels will typically only teach
non-Israelis out of the same fear of competition.

The profession here is traditionally passed down
from father to son, with few outsiders being allowed to
learn the skill. Additional barriers are presented to
anyone not Orthodox, says Sacks, himself a Conservative
rabbi.

Those on the receiving end can also face hurdles,
particularly new immigrants without the resources to
afford the surgery - a much more costly affair if done
on an adult because it necessitates a hospital visit
and attending physician.

Sacks works with an organization called Keren Habrit
dedicated to defraying the cost of circumcision for
anyone who faces financial difficulty, save those who
request the procedure for cosmetic reasons.

But in affluent communities such as the small group
of expatriate Jews who live in Hong Kong, parents are
often willing to pay exorbitant amounts for a brit mila
- upwards of the $1,600 the plane ticket from Israel
costs. Because the ceremony needs to be performed by a
Jew and there's no one trained in the procedure there,
families will fly Sacks in to carry out the
circumcision.

"There's clearly a greater emotional attachment to
[brit mila] than any other mitzva," Sacks says. "No one
spends that kind of money on a succa. For that amount
of money you could have a really nice succa."